Public and Environmental Affairs | Conservation for the 21st Century
E710 | 30356 | Meretsky, V

E 710 Advanced Topics in Environmental Science (1-3#cr.) P: consent
of instructor.
In the coming years, conservation researchers, policy makers, and
managers will face a host of new and evolving issues such as
landscape-level planning across geographical, political, and
organizational boundaries; partnership building to enable large-
scale conservation; adaptive management; climate change; and
decision-making strategies that can encompass these new and evolving
issues. The US Fish and Wildlife Service is creating a new level of
organization – the Landscape Conservation Centers – to work on some
of these issues, as well as working with other centers such as the
National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center.
This seminar course will meet twice each week. One
meeting, together with US Fish and Wildlife Service personnel, will
feature a guest presentation on a topic of interest, with follow-up
discussion. On the alternate day of the week, we will discuss
readings related to but not duplicating the presentation – some FWS
personnel may join readings discussions. We will be joined at most
meeting by Teresa Woods, Special Assistant to the Regional Director
from the FWS Region 3 office in Minneapolis. Ms. Woods worked with
us on the previous FWS-linked class on climate change and fish and
wildlife resources, in fall 2008. FWS personnel will attend
remotely, from their duty stations at regional offices, field
offices, and national wildlife refuges. Most guest speakers will
also attend remotely. All parties will be linked by desktop-sharing
software that allows us to share PowerPoints, websites, and .pdf
files, and by a toll-free telephone line supported by the FWS.
Assignments in the course will include assisting
with readings discussions, and preparation of a brief and a term
paper. Assignments and grading standards will differ for
undergraduate and graduate students. We will explore the possibility
of allowing students to produce service-oriented assignments to
respond to FWS information needs in writing their briefs and
papers.
The pace of discussion, particularly during the
guest lectures, will be set in part by the needs of the FWS
personnel and their level of familiarity with the topic. Instructors
will moderate to be sure all participants keep up with the
conversation, but will assume all students have some familiarity
with the field; the prerequisite is a requirement. Students without
the prerequisite are likely to have difficulty with some parts of
the class.